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The Tower Systems Point of Sale software helps business owners encode and share information about how the business operates. recording intellectual property about the operation of a business and making it accessible to those working in the business makes it easier for family members to grow into the business and stay close to how the family has done business over the years.

Family businesses are different to non-family businesses. They are often run on a different basis and with different goals. Having software that enables to recording of business rules and processes makes it easier for these businesses to track and manage how things are done and thereby to continue family traditions if important to the business.

The Tower software offers a range of mechanisms through which business processes are recorded – guiding those coming into roles and needing to follow tradition.

A competitor in one of our specialist retail marketplaces recently used a photo from from one of our own retail businesses where our own software is used on the landing page of their website. It took some prodding but they eventually removed the image – as they should have as it was suggesting they offered something they did not.

While we have announced our PayPal integration and started active in-store testing of an innovative link developed in partnership since last year with PayPal, a competitor has published material to suggest they are working on this too. We urge retailers to ask to see the technology running and to see evidence of any claim of working with PayPal. We can demonstrate the integration and prove the long-term active engagement with PayPal.

Anyone can make an announcement. It takes leadership to deliver on the announcement with a useable product.

Footnote: what is hilarious is when the competitor published their post about Paypal they linked to a video that showed Paypal being used by other software – not theirs. If they had what they vaguely infer they have they would have shown a video of their software.

Rod Sims, the Chairman of the ACCC, this week laid out in a speech to the CEDA conference the priorities for the organisation for 2014. Included in the priorities is attention on drip pricing:

Drip pricing involves the incremental disclosure of fees and charges over an online booking process. It causes both competition and consumer detriment.

Consumers see a ‘headline’ price advertised at the beginning of the booking process but when they progress to the payment phase, additional fees and charges have been added. Consumers purchasing airfares or sporting event tickets are all too familiar with this practice. Drip pricing involves a lack of transparency which may mislead consumers, and it can also make it difficult for businesses to compete on a level playing field.

Drip pricing can also exist where a customer signs up for a product expecting the price to be X and subsequently, once using the product, that the price is Y. Y pricing could be a mandatory annual fee that was not adequately disclosed in the initial sale process and that is not clearly documented in any contract.

We see this in the POS software space – where customers find that the cost of ownership of software is much higher than as represented in the sales process.

We have evidence of a competitor seeking to download confidential company information from our server on several occasions. This has prompted another review of our security arrangements. While it’s flattering the amount of time the competitor obsesses and has obsessed in the past about us, we want to make it harder for them to copy our innovation.

Last week, our VIOP phone network and our website were attacked in two separate and sustained attacks. The Optus fraud team has got to the bottom of the phone hack and in working with them and our in-house technical specialist we have increased fortification to stop this type of attack in the future.

Our VOIP network covers several Australian states as well as New Zealand. While the attack did not impact inbound services, we had challenges making overseas calls and so switched to mobile use to maintain support coverage.

The website attacks are on-going as those perpetrating them are on the move. Our external hosting provider is working with us to mitigate the situation. The worst case scenario is short-term outage for our website. Thankfully, redundancy provisions mean outage is minimised.

It is frustrating having to spend time and money protecting your business from those externally who are seeking to disrupt you.

We have been given a copy of a support invoice from a competitor which software that software support coverage is labelled as compulsory registration. The invoice indicates that if this is not paid, access to electronic invoices will be cut off. Since this is an important time-saving facility for retailers some will feel economically pressured to pay the ‘registration’ fee to keep getting the time-saving electronic invoices.

Our view is that once someone has paid for the software, paying for software support should be optional. This is how it has been always at Tower Systems and how it will continue. We want our customers paying support because they like what we do and not because of a threat of economic and operational hardship.

We encountered a situation recently where a retailer said they were leaning toward a competitor because they were bigger than us. This competitor claims to have 50 employees, more than us.

Anyone can make a claim in a sales situation. We encourage retailers to respond to any claim with prove it. In this case, we’d say to the sales prospect – ask this other software company to prove they have 50 employees. We know they can’t. They have fewer employees – not that employee team size matters.

The truth is what matters in any sales situation, especially in a Point of sale software sales situation since it’s a relationship for the long term. Make a good decision and your business will prosperfor years. make a bad decision and you could experience significant costs for years bundled with plenty of regret.

The best decisions are those based on the truth. Chase the truth more than a feel good experience as any good sales person can make you feel good for as long as it takes to get your order.

Thanks to today’s connected world it is easier than ever for customers and prospective customers, individuals and businesses, to check if a company is lying.

A quick search can check a claimed fact for accuracy. An email, text, online message, Skype or some other digital comms with a competitor can allow a sales prospect to see if a sales pitch statement is true.

Today’s connected and searchable world is a sales prospect’s best friend. There is no excuse for being fooled by a sales pitch that a company provides the best customer service or a claim that a company was first to deliver a particular technology. Thanks to the ease of such research companies making any claim need to ensure that the claims are truthful.

We encourage sales prospects considering purchasing our Point of Sale software to check us out online and among their peers. For years we have run our business knowing that in this era, more than at any time in the past, our actions speak louder than words and our actions can be searched.

Thanks to Google we are able to help prospective customers compare us, to see where others may be making claims that are not supported in fact.

We were contacted recently by a retailer using software from another software company. They were upset that access to a key facility through their software had been disabled by their software company. Here is what they told us:

Recently, we received the annually subscription bill from the software company we were using, it went up at least 10%. We consider the service they have provided us to be unacceptable. There is no point to pay the subscription any more. Since we own the software, we should be able to keep using the software. However, today we found out we on longer able to download EDI invoice files from suppliers.

Blocking access to a business-critical function appears to be punishment to the retailer for not maintaining software support. Support is not necessary for processing the invoices, the retailer was not seeking support assistance. A facility that had worked for years stopped working the moment support was not renewed.

Tower Systems does not do this, we do not block access to our software or external links feeding our software if one of our customers decides to not continue software support coverage. Our approach makes software support coverage genuinely optional. This is as it should be.

Retailers should continue with software support coverage if they like what we do and not because of frustration or pain that may come to their business if they do not maintain software support coverage.

We are pleased to have ben able to step in, show off our customer service and win a new customer.

Everyone who represents Tower Systems is counselled to not discuss the competition. It’s not our job. Our focus is on our software and our services for it is these our customers love.

While it frustrates us to hear of a representative of a competitor bagging us (with lies), by focussing on our actions, the truth, we win more business.

You’d think sales people who win sales by lying would learn. Apparently not.

If you are fronted by someone representing a computer company, not just a POS software company, make a note of claims they make a bout a competitor. If you think you might go with them, get them to sign in writing to what they said about their competitor. This will be your moment of truth.

We have taken time to consider the impact of the Carbon Tax on our software development and sales business, to determine how our operating costs will increase and when. There is no doubt that we face some cost pressure.

We will not be increasing our prices and fees as a result of the Carbon Tax.

Retailers using our Point of Sale software now and those who contemplating the purchase of our software can rest assured that our pricing will not alter because of the Carbon Tax.

We are making this announcement to provide the 2,000+ small businesses we serve with certainty and to reflect our confidence that we can manage the financial impact of the Carbon Tax on our business in a way which serves our needs and the needs of our customers.

There is plenty of negative noise from some politicians and certain sections of the media about the Carbon Tax. Our view is that this talks down consumer and business confidence. This is unfortunate since we should be focused on the considerable good news in the marketplace at the moment.

We are ending the 2011/12 financial year on a strong footing and are happy to share the fruits of this with this announcement about the carbon tax and our announcement at the start of the year that for the fourth year in a row we will not increase our software support fees.

We are fascinated by the money supermarket giants Woolworths and Coles are spending in their latest price and loyalty war. Each is trying to outdo the other with their claims of discounts and loyal shopper benefits.

Smart shoppers who price and service compare an independently owned retail business with Coles or Woolworths will often find that the independent retailer offers better value, value in the form of price, service, social responsibility and even respected brand range.

Small and independent retailers and the lifeblood of the Australian economy and they are our customers here at Tower Systems.

We recently compared prices charged by some retailers using our Point of sale software with nearby major supermarkets. Yes, our customers were cheaper on everyday items despite the advertising by the supermarkets.

Australian consumers need to look beyond the advertising campaigns and check for themselves. Often, the genuine value offered by a business is the inverse of what it spends in advertising its claimed value proposition.

We support our community of small and independent retailers by delivering retail management software while helps them to operate efficiently, transact accurately, order with reduced waste, reward loyal shoppers and manage employees for business growth and personal reward.

We help small and independent retailers compete in an economy dominated by large retailers.

Thanks to smart tools in our software, our retail partners can communicate the benefits of their business through several touch points during and after sales processed by our system.

By empowering small and independent retailers with outcome-focused competitive tools, oyr partners can bank terrific results.

Retailers considering purchasing Point of Sale software need to ensure that software support coverage is optional. We have seen situations where support is not optional and when not paid retailers are blocked from accessing their business data.

Ask the question and get the answer in writing as part of a proposed contract. Otherwise you could find that business data you have gathered through the year is no longer accessible unless you pay a mandatory fee.

At Tower Systems, software support coverage is optional. It always has been. We believe that the data you enter and cultivate using our software is yours to access whenever.

Retailers need to check that they receive what they actually pay for when taking delivery of a new Point of sale system, especially if it involved hardware as well as software. Too often we have found retailers have been provided something less than quoted, less than they paid for. Here’s what should come with new hardware:

The original box from the manufacturer.

A written warranty.

A licence for any operating software including any CDs and keys to enable the software to be installed on the computer again.

Components inside the computer which match what you have been sold.

Any other confirmation that this is a new computer.

Details of whom to call should there be a warranty claim.

Being supplied second-hand hardware when you order new hardware or being supplied no name hardware when you have been told it is a trusted brand could mean you have been ripped off. The time to check this is when you are supplied.

Tower Systems supplies new hardware from brand name companies. All hardware is supplied in original boxes with manufacturer paperwork. All of our computers are from HP and come with an on site HP-backed warranty.

While switching another newsagent to our newsagency software last week, the newsagent called their old newsagency software company to advise them of the move. What was expected to be a courteous call turned nasty quickly.

The owner of the software company yelled at our new customer, criticising their decision to switch to us. In their rant they made several claims about Tower Systems which are untrue. One of our installation experts was on hand to hear the call.

The best way any software company can stop people switching from their software to that of another company is by providing genuinely valuable and up to date software and to back this up with easy to access customer service.

No software company owns a customer. Internally, we regularly remind ourselves that we are only as good as the last support call and only as good as the last software update. The reminders focus our attention on doing our best today, in this moment, and not resting on laurels earned years ago.

Why people purchase software can be different to why they continue to use the software. This is where everyday timely and professional customer service and quality software updates are vital. The lack of either is the usual reason people switch software.

We are thrilled to be growing our newsagency software customer base through acquisition as well as through winning new customers a site at a time. W are equally thrilled with an excellent customer retention rate as indicated through optional annual software supper uptake.

The competitor who yelled at their former customer last week reinforced the decision the newsagent had made some weeks earlier and provided them with a story which will no doubt be shared with colleagues.

We are given information by many suppliers well in advance of announcement to their retail partners. This early announcement allows us to test data files in advance of an announcement by suppliers to their customers. In most cases this data is provided on a confidential basis, some even have a specific embargoed to date. We respect this, keeping the information confidential. It is important to us that suppliers can trust us to be prepared in advance for our customers without abusing commercial in confidence information.

Tower Systems announced to its Point of Sale software customers two weeks ago that support fees for 2012 would remain the same as they were in 2011, 2010 and 2009.

This decision provides our customers with certainty on the costs of maintaining their software and accessing our support services commented Mark Fletcher, Managing Director of Tower Systems. We are thrilled to be in a position to maintain software support fees for four years now.

While the company has maintained software support fees, it has continued to increase services provided to its customers … delivering more value today in 2012 than available in 2009.

All Tower Systems Point of Sale software customers pay a support fee which is published to all users and others who visit the company website. This transparency and the company’s public commitment to a universal approach to support fees is unusual in the vertical market software space.

We do not believe in special support rates to get someone to say good things about our software, commented Mark Fletcher. We want every one of our customers to say good things about us, this is why we take a universal and transparent approach to delivering support services, software updates and charging for these services.

In addition to holding support fees at their 2009 level, the company also announced support free discounts for customers who choose to pay support two or three years in advance. These discounts offer retailers even more opportunities to reduce the costs of maintaining their software and accessing the Tower Help Desk.

The news about support fees remaining the same in 2012 as in 2011 was announced in the January 2012 newsletter which was mailed to all customers late last year. The newsletter contained several New Year ‘gifts’ for Tower customers.

Tower Systems serves in excess of 2,500 retailers across a variety of marketplaces in Australia, New Zealand, Fiji and papua New Guinea.

We often find ourselves logging onto client systems and researching a question or resolving an issue as if we were physically on site. We do this in full view of our customers. This is important as it is their data and their business we are looking at and, possibly, changing. We want our customers to watch, so they are fully aware of what was done.

We have deliberately chosen remote connection technology which requires client transparency and, indeed, approval of our connection to their business – every time. This is vitally important to us and to our clients.

We hear stories of businesses finding system settings or data changed without their knowledge or approval. We don’t do this. We can’t do this with how our systems are setup. This provides our customers with certainty and comfort.

The risk of an easy and or open connection is that it could be abused by the IT company. They could log in and damage the business in some way without leaving a trail. They could, for example, cause problems which force the user to call the IT company’s help desk, thereby generating reliance on and revenue for them. This is one of the risks of unsecure remote connections.

Businesses need to ensure that their IT infrastructure is secure, especially if their relationship with those who established or controlled their IT platform is not as strong as it once was.

We operate in a range of small business retail channels and have competitors in each. Competition between software companies is good for each retail channel as it keeps the respective software companies focused on delivering better products and backing this with point-of-difference support.

We take our obligation to engage in genuine competition seriously. This means that we reject any invitation to collude on price, functionality or anything which would compromise competition. Besides being illegal, it would do a disservice to retailers.

We build competitive advantage into our software and into our customer service. It is important for us to talk about this, to leverage our investment in competitive advantage. Current and prospective customers benefit from this.

Software companies have nothing to fear from robust competition as long as it is truthful and transparent. The winners from this are the customers and isn’t that why we are all here?

We rely on access to air travel to deliver the services we offer our customers, especially new customers where we visit to deliver on site training. The decision by Qantas yesterday to ground all their aircraft has hit the travel plans of some of our employees. We are doing what we can to work around this blockade by Qantas management and will contact any of our customers who may be directly affected.

In the meantime we record here our disgust that Qantas would make such a selfish and ill-considered decision which will have a considerable knock-on costs for businesses and individuals. This is not what we expect from a company which claims to be the airline of choice for Australians.

An important factor in considering purchasing a Point of Sale system is price. Sometimes the cheapest priced system is the one you want to avoid. Especially if their price is barely what it would cost to purchase at wholesale the hardware in their quote.

Cheap hardware could be poorer standard. It could also not come with the level of support to make it useful. It may not be new. Corners might be cut elsewhere to enable the company to sell so cheap.

We saw this recently when a competitor offered a system at such a price that they would not make money off the deal – regardless of any claim they make about the Australian dollar and the like. What was not in writing was their software pricing model. They factored in that the customer would use the software for several years and would have to pay each year thousands of dollars just to access their own business data. So, what looked like a cheap deal was not when you took a total cost of ownership view over, say, four years.

Our pricing is public, on our website. What you see is what you get. Our transparency on price, commitment to quality hardware and approach to professional and timely support are what win us good business. We can compete with cheap competitors by focusing on what a sales prospect really wants.

Cheap today is of no value tomorrow without reliable hardware and access to quality support services.

We offer professional Point of Sale software backed by on time, helpful and knowledgable advice. The value of these things is far greater to a business than saving a few bucks on cheap hardware of questionable quality.

We have been working with Tyro and others to help fight the expected move by the big banks plus Coles and Woolworths to increase EFTPOS fees from October 1. EPAL, the body which governs EFTPOS fees has already announced fee changes. While we don’t know if the big banks will increase fees to retailers, recent moves indicate that this may be on the cards. Hence the importance of work to help protect the interests of our community of small and independent retailer.

We are working on this by making representations to politicians as well as media outlets. We have attended several meetings interstate in pursuit of fairness not only for our customers but all small and independent retailers.

Tyro has committed to not increasing its fees except for a minority of premium cards which it has no choice but to move slightly.

Pushing back against higher fees by big banks is important work. We are glad to be in a position to help. We see our work as part of our commitment to social responsibility.

You can read the latest press release from Tyro on this important issue here.

Retailers are well advised to make careful and honest use of their Point of Sale software following reports of Tax Office interest in how some software packages could be used to commit fraud against the commonwealth.

We do not support, encourage or help retailers using our software to act illegally.

Any software company, retailers or other party engaged in tax fraud using software will ultimately be found out. The work being done by a variety of government agencies in this area is considerable.

So, we share here today a warning: make honest use of your POS software. Use intended to defraud the government will hurt the business.

In the 1990s we were asked for advice by several agencies of the federal government which were investigating the use of retail software from another company. We saw from that investigation that they take using software as a tool of fraud seriously.

The other aspect of this which is important for retailers to understand is that how you use your software will be a lesson to your employees. Use your software to defraud the government and expect your employees to do the same to you.

Tyro, our preferred broadband EFTPOS partner and the EFTPOS partner small business and independent retailers love, is fighting hard against the looming EFTPOS fee hike which is being driven by the major Australian banks. Click here to see the latest Tyro press release on the EFTPOS fee situation.

While some sections of the media are getting all worked up over the carbon tax, others are remaining silent on what is effective a new EFTPOS Tax being imposed by the banks and facilitates by the federal government.

The impact of the higher EFTPOS fees could be more significant on small businesses, especially those which cannot easily pass on or mitigate against the higher costs of doing EFTPOS transactions. Coles and Woolworths are exempt. They sit on the board which decided the price rise which is set to cause the EFTPOS fee hike.

With EFTPOS an important method of payment in retail today, retailers have little choice but to offer this service. This positions them at the mercy of the major banks who control EPAL which sets pricing for services which effects EFTPOS processing fees.

We are supporting the campaign against higher EFTPOS fees in a number of ways including focusing on the topic at this blog and in direct communication with our customers.

Part of our mission here at Tower Systems is to help our retail partners cut the cost of doing business. While our software is terrific at helping retailers do this, we rely on fairness from providers such as the banks and their EFTPOS processing services. Our lobbying on the EFTPOS fee hike issue is central to our mission. We will gladly go into bat for our customers to help them maintain a fair cost structure.

Tower Systems proudly serves over 2,500 small and independent retailers across Australia.